HYDERABAD, April 28: Activists of the Pakistan Fisherfolk Forum took out a procession from the Shahbaz building to the press club on Friday in protest against the contract system for catching fish.

Mustafa Mirani, Saeed Baloch, Tahira Ali Shah and Mohammad Mallah led the protesters.

The protesters, including women and children, carried banners and placards.

They raised slogans against the contract system.

The leaders said that the contract system had failed and the Sindh government was not satisfied with the income derived from it.

They said that thousands of fishermen had been rendered jobless due to the contract system while on the other all the water ponds and lakes had been rendered dry due to an acute shortage of water in the Indus River.

They said that if water was available in some ponds, it had become poisonous due to the release of effluent water by Punjab in the LBOD and the RBOD.

They claimed that fishermen alone had the inherent and historical right over the sweet waters.

They criticised the provincial adviser for fisheries and warned that if the Sindh government failed to reintroduce licence system, the forum would stage a protest movement with the support of all fishermen of the country, political parties and social welfare organisations.

They appealed to the president to direct the Sindh government to abolish the contract system to save livelihood of tens of thousands of fishermen.